Intel HD Graphics Driver v2729 with OpenGL 4 Support and New OpenGL Extensions!

I just tested the latest HD Graphics driver v2729 with my Ivy Bridge GPU and guess what, GPU Caps Viewer tells me that Intel has (silently?) added the support of OpenGL 4! Yes my friends, we can now run OpenGL 4 apps (with tessellation!!!) on Intel GPUs. Yeah! The funny thing is that there’s no mention of the OpenGL 4 support in the release notes. OpenGL 4 in the HD Graphics driver is not a big stuff for Intel, just a quick update…

You can download the HD Graphics driver v2927 (15.28.0.64.2729 (9.17.10.2729)) from this page. This driver is intended for Windows 8 but the package contains also the Win7 64-bit driver.

And last but not least with one oddity, WEI score is showing increment for the first time (Aero=5.6 from 5.5) but not without compensation (3D=5.8 from 6.0). There seems a lot of capped/untapped potential coz previously driver v2622 delivered higher WEI score for 3D (Aero=5.5, 3D=6.2)

I hope for once, they make genuine performance increase in next driver version and just stop boosting performance in one graphical aspect at the cost of other critical aspects.

My goodness, this beta driver can’t cease surprising me. I was trying different things to see whether I might be able to pull off a workaround for OpenGL benchmark test bug. Don’t know what went wrong but while running 3DMark V (vantage) it generated an error saying something along the line “Flash script is (taking) too long, keep it running or abort? ” Well judging from the word flash, I upgraded to Flash Player v11.2.202.235 (can’t remember previous but I haven’t applied update for atleast 5-6 months).

I’m using a i5-2520m with 8gb of RAM.
I updated from 2656; and Gaming graphics subsequently dropped from 6.3 to 6.1 in WEI; also the main menu in Syndicate has become invisible. I like better benchmarks as much as the next guy; but hey, what I have is hardly a gaming rig, I guess I can’t afford beta drivers on top of that.

UPDATE. UPDATE. UPDATE. WOWWWEEE! Its Christmas in May!!! Intel has refreshed drivers not only for 3rd & 2nd Gen GPU but for 1st Gen (HD Graphics) too. But the reason they’ve earned truckloads of my respect is that they’ve even released Win7 & Win8 Drivers, both x86 & x64, for the forgotten Intel GMA X3100 as well. Thats really a great step forward coz its a 5+ Years old GPU. Well done Intel. Well done! Gonna benchmark x3100 too, soon.

Sorry J, couldn’t get back online.. had some offline issues to deal. You’re right. Those drivers aren’t formally released by Intel yet. But have been pushed as part of windows update. I picked up those from softpedia… lower half-page (cab file, manual/have-disk install):

So far v2752 seems pretty much the same in benchmarks as that of v2712, which is inferior to v2729 (win8 beta) performance-wise, excluding OpenGL issue. Its quite clear as 3DMark V scores range in P1440-P1450s with former, while with later in P1490-P1500s on HD2000.

Gonna give v2736 (win8) a try on win7 now. Let’s see how it scores across usual benchmarks.